Adapting the values affirmation intervention to a multi-stereotype threat framework for female students in STEM

ABSTRACT Female residents in surgical training may face stereotype threat. The awareness of negative stereotypes about surgical ability based on gender may heighten stress and thus reduce performance.Background The main objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a brief stress-reducing writing exercise, known as a values affirmation, to mitigate the negative effects of stereotype threat on the performance of female surgical residents.Objective This is a randomized, controlled trial in which 167 residents were invited to participate. A total of 45 resident volunteers, including 18 women, were randomized to the affirmation condition or the no-affirmation condition. We administered a values affirmation intervention and measured clinical evaluations data both prior to and 6 months after the intervention.Methods Women benefited from the affirmation. Women who had participated in the affirmation exercise earned higher clinical evaluation scores than those in the control condition (B = 0.34, P < .05). For men, performance did not differ by affirmation condition (B = –0.20, P = .35).Results Our findings suggest a benefit of values affirmation for women in surgical training, as measured by performance on clinical evaluations. This suggests that a brief psychological intervention may improve on-the-job performance for women in surgery, an underrepresented group.Conclusions

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Using Values Affirmation to Reduce the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Hypertension Disparities: Protocol for the Multicenter Randomized Hypertension and Values (HYVALUE) Trial (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.12498 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Stacie L Daugherty ◽

Suma Vupputuri ◽

Rebecca Hanratty ◽

John F Steiner ◽

Julie A Maertens ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

Health Care ◽

Medication Adherence ◽

Racial Disparities ◽

Stereotype Threat ◽

Primary Outcome ◽

Racial Bias ◽

The United States ◽

Uncontrolled Hypertension ◽

Values Affirmation

BACKGROUND Medication nonadherence is a significant, modifiable contributor to uncontrolled hypertension. Stereotype threat may contribute to racial disparities in adherence by hindering a patient’s ability to actively engage during a clinical encounter, resulting in reduced activation to adhere to prescribed therapies. OBJECTIVE The Hypertension and Values (HYVALUE) trial aims to examine whether a values-affirmation intervention improves medication adherence (primary outcome) by targeting racial stereotype threat. METHODS The HYVALUE trial is a patient-level, blinded randomized controlled trial comparing a brief values-affirmation writing exercise with a control writing exercise among black and white patients with uncontrolled hypertension. We are recruiting patients from 3 large health systems in the United States. The primary outcome is patients’ adherence to antihypertensive medications, with secondary outcomes of systolic and diastolic blood pressure over time, time for which blood pressure is under control, and treatment intensification. We are comparing the effects of the intervention among blacks and whites, exploring possible moderators (ie, patients’ prior experiences of discrimination and clinician racial bias) and mediators (ie, patient activation) of intervention effects on outcomes. RESULTS This study was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Enrollment and follow-up are ongoing and data analysis is expected to begin in late 2020. Planned enrollment is 1130 patients. On the basis of evidence supporting the effectiveness of values affirmation in educational settings and our pilot work demonstrating improved patient-clinician communication, we hypothesize that values affirmation disrupts the negative effects of stereotype threat on the clinical interaction and can reduce racial disparities in medication adherence and subsequent health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS The HYVALUE study moves beyond documentation of race-based health disparities toward testing an intervention. We focus on a medical condition—hypertension, which is arguably the greatest contributor to mortality disparities for black patients. If successful, this study will be the first to provide evidence for a low-resource intervention that has the potential to substantially reduce health care disparities across a wide range of health care conditions and populations. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03028597; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03028597 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/72vcZMzAB). INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPOR DERR1-10.2196/12498

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Stereotype threat in classroom settings: The interactive effect of domain identification, task difficulty and stereotype threat on female students' maths performance

British Journal of Educational Psychology ◽

10.1348/000709906x113662 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 77 (2) ◽

pp. 323-338 ◽

Cited By ~ 112

Author(s):

Johannes Keller

Keyword(s):

Stereotype Threat ◽

Task Difficulty ◽

Interactive Effect ◽

Female Students ◽

Identification Task ◽

Domain Identification

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Stereotyped: Investigating Gender in Introductory Science Courses

CBE—Life Sciences Education ◽

10.1187/cbe.12-08-0133 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 30-38 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Shanda Lauer ◽

Jennifer Momsen ◽

Erika Offerdahl ◽

Mila Kryjevskaia ◽

Warren Christensen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Education Research ◽

Stereotype Threat ◽

Student Performance ◽

Physics Education ◽

Achievement Gaps ◽

Science Courses ◽

Values Affirmation ◽

Introductory Science ◽

The Impact ◽

Writing Task

Research in science education has documented achievement gaps between men and women in math and physics that may reflect, in part, a response to perceived stereotype threat. Research efforts to reduce achievement gaps by mediating the impact of stereotype threat have found success with a short values-affirmation writing exercise. In biology and biochemistry, however, little attention has been paid to the performance of women in comparison with men or perceptions of stereotype threat, despite documentation of leaky pipelines into professional and academic careers. We used methodologies developed in physics education research and cognitive psychology to 1) investigate and compare the performance of women and men across three introductory science sequences (biology, biochemistry, physics), 2) document endorsement of stereotype threat in these science courses, and 3) investigate the utility of a values-affirmation writing task in reducing achievement gaps. In our study, analysis of final grades and normalized learning gains on content-specific concept inventories reveals no achievement gap in the courses sampled, little stereotype threat endorsement, and no impact of the values-affirmation writing task on student performance. These results underscore the context-dependent nature of achievement gaps and stereotype threat and highlight calls to replicate education research across a range of student populations.

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Does stereotype threat affect female students’ performance in introductory physics?

10.1063/1.5110145 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alexandru Maries ◽

Nafis I. Karim ◽

Chandralekha Singh

Keyword(s):

Stereotype Threat ◽

Female Students ◽

Introductory Physics

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Values Affirmation Intervention Reduces Achievement Gap between Underrepresented Minority and White Students in Introductory Biology Classes

CBE—Life Sciences Education ◽

10.1187/cbe.16-12-0351 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. ar41 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Hannah Jordt ◽

Sarah L. Eddy ◽

Riley Brazil ◽

Ignatius Lau ◽

Chelsea Mann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Achievement Gap ◽

Active Learning ◽

Stereotype Threat ◽

White Students ◽

Psychosocial Interventions ◽

Achievement Gaps ◽

Underrepresented Minority ◽

Grade Point ◽

Values Affirmation ◽

White Majority

Achievement gaps between underrepresented minority (URM) students and their white peers in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms are persistent across many white-majority institutions of higher education. Attempts to reduce this phenomenon of underperformance through increasing classroom structure via active learning have been partially successful. In this study, we address the hypothesis that the achievement gap between white and URM students in an undergraduate biology course has a psychological and emotional component arising from stereotype threat. Specifically, we introduced a values affirmation exercise that counters stereotype threat by reinforcing a student’s feelings of integrity and self-worth in three iterations of an intensive active-learning college biology course. On average, this exercise reduced the achievement gap between URM and white students who entered the course with the same incoming grade point average. This result suggests that achievement gaps resulting from the underperformance of URM students could be mitigated by providing students with a learning environment that removes psychological and emotional impediments of performance through short psychosocial interventions.

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